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Panzor writes "NASA is running a contest to name the new addition to the space station, Node 3. The polls are open until March 20. The selection that is getting the most votes is 'Suggest your own,' and the leading name besides the official four (Earthrise, Legacy, Serenity, and Venture) is 'Colbert.' Comedian Stephen Colbert suggested on the air that fans write in his name. On March 5th, his vote count passed that of Xenu and Colbert pronounced himself Scientology's 'Galactic Overlord.'"

I don't know where people are getting the number of votes from. I see "Colbert" is leading the User Suggestions, but I don't see a vote count anywhere. I see "Serenity" has 85% of the regular votes, but it doesn't say anywhere whether it has more or less votes than Colbert does.

I have no doubt that Colbert can and will (or has!) overtaken everything else, but where are people seeing actual results here?

Given the number of overall suggestions was around 170000 when I last looked at it this isn't such a popular poll in any case. Maybe 500 people voted for Colbert (I did) and that pushed it above the 400 "Anonymous" guys that wanted to call it "Xenu". No one knows.

This marks only the second time that NASA has sought public input for naming a piece of U.S. space station hardware. The Harmony module was named by 2,200 students who entered NASA's naming contest for Node 2. By contrast, 169,000 people have voted online at NASA's naming contest site so far.

The NASA-chosen name Serenity, which shares the name of a spaceship in the cult favorite television series "Firefly", continues to maintain a huge lead with more than 66,000 votes, according to NASA. But a surge of votes has given Colbert 29,000 in just two days, enough for second overall. The trailing vote-getters include Xenu (9,200), Earthrise (4,200), Legacy (3,500) and Venture (3,200).

According to this report [livescience.com], published yesterday, Serenity was in the lead with more than 66,000 votes, with Colbert in second overall with 29,000 votes. The trailing vote-getters include Xenu (9,200), Earthrise (4,200), Legacy (3,500) and Venture (3,200). Of course, these numbers are from yesterday when only 169,000 people voted. There's now 249,449 votes, so Colbert could very well be in the lead,... =)

On a more personal note, I could be happy with either Colbert or Serenity -- while I am a huge fan of Stephen Colbert, I am also a huge fan of Firefly,... The Serenity name would go along a bit better with the whole theme of the space station, though. I'd bet money that what happens is Colbert wins, but they decide to stick with the theme and dignity and name it the second place name of Serenity. To recognize Colbert's contribution, they'll name the toilet on board the module after Stephen,...;-)

A while back we (Canada) had a right-wing politician (Stockwell Day) trying to pass a law that would force a binding referendum if a particular number of citizens signed a petition for it. I think he wanted to stamp out gay marriage, or immigration, or some other thing that "white skin and red neck guys don't like". (Sorry I don't recall the details.)

Before the "force a referendum with a petition" law passed, Rick Mercer (Canadian comedian who hosts a fake news show) st

No it won't. One of the rules of naming such semi-permanent structures is that they're not often named after living people. Colbert is amusing now (though I find him annoying, to be truthful) but what happens if in 5 years he runs over a group of children in a drunk driving incident? Do you really want a NASA module named after that? Is that going to be funny?

There are exceptions, but they're fairly rare and usually involve someone who either: a) invented the thing (Colt revolvers or Ferris Wheels), or; b) donated a tonne of money (anybody remember Enron stadium, or the Ken Lay Chair in Economics at Methodist University?)

Xenu is too religious, and a government agency wouldn't name anything after Scientology.

That's why NASA's suggestions are more benign, and why one of them will likely be chosen.

Besides, the subtlety of the shout-out to the Big Damn Heroes is awesome and not overt enough to eliminate the name.

No it won't. One of the rules of naming such semi-permanent structures is that they're not often named after living people.

So who is to say that the name Colbert refers to a living person? There is a Colbert County [colbertcounty.org] in Alabama and of course the famous Jean-Baptiste Colbert [wikipedia.org] who served as the French minister of finance from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. There are also:
Charles Colbert, marquis de Croissy (1625-1696), French diplomatist, brother of Jean-Baptiste Colbert;
Claudette Colbert (1903-1996), American actress;
Conn Colbert (1896-1916), Irish rebel;
Edouard Colbert (1774-1853), Napoleonic French Baron and leader of the Red Lancers;
Edwin Harris Colbert (1905-2001), American vertebrate paleontologist;
Holmes Colbert, developer of the Chickasaw Nation's constitution in the 1850s and
Jacques-Nicolas Colbert (1655-1707), French churchman, son of Jean-Baptiste Colbert. No way did I voted 30 - 40 times for Stephen Colbert.

Satire is generally more insightful and incisive than reality, that's why people in power hate it so much and dictatorial regimes work so hard to suppress it. It's even more the case when the establishment has screwed up in a massive way like the current situation.

In fact political satire feeds on the failings of those in power to such a degree that it's often not funny when the government appears to be doing OK. Rory Bremner was at his peak during the Major years but lost his bite whilst Alastair Campbell

In 1998, People magazine ran an online poll to determine the most beautiful people in the world, where somebody facetiously entered Nasiff as a write-in candidate. Nasiff won the contest, receiving hundreds of thousands of votes. At the time the online poll was launched, People led voters to believe that it would influence the print magazine's annual listing of "the most beautiful people." People refused to allow online votes to influence the magazine results. The poll was configured so that users could vote multiple times, by deleting a cookie given from the site. Many contestants had scripts written that would allow users to vote repeatedly.

It's just a joke... I was just thinking of the one Republican President that would pretty much piss off everyone if something was named after him was the joke. I picked Nixon because if I said Bush it would be too fresh in the minds of my liberal friends and the humor would overridden by the immediacy of it. Wanted to make people laugh at something over the top, not start a flamewar.

Eh, that makes sense for an online poll with write-in. It discourages 4chan et all coming along and flooding the poll suggesting the node should be named something along the lines of "NIGGER COCKS OLOLOL".

Eh, that makes sense for an online poll with write-in. It discourages 4chan et all coming along and flooding the poll suggesting the node should be named something along the lines of "NIGGER COCKS OLOLOL".

I would actually prefer Battletoad over Xenu or Vista... but hey maybe I'm just biased against cults and unsuccessful operating systems and am not caught up on the nuances of what precisely a "battletoad" is.

What I don't get is why anyone would lobby hard to name a space station module after a space ship. I could see naming the next generation launch vehicle Serenity, but a module on a space station? Meh.

The last time this happened, a whole bunch of people lobbied NASA to have a space shuttle named

Battletoads is a video game created by Rare Ltd. to rival the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games.

Two anthropomorphic toads named after skin disorders (Rash and Zitz) have to save their friends Pimple and the Princess Angelica from the Dark Queen, ruler of Planet Ragnarok, with the assistance of Professor T. Bird and his space ship, The Vulture.

It is also the game eBaum's World asks for when they call GameStop because douchy (actually made with vinegar and water!) Eric Bauman thought it was funny about 9000

Lucasfilm isn't suing people who reveal that Emperor Palpatine is the big bad in the Jedi religion, and the various churches aren't suing people who reveal that Satan is the big bad in the various Judeo-Christian religions. (In the latter case, they actually PROMOTE revealing that fact for free.)

The Co$ is suing people who reveal that Xenu is the big bad in Scientology, and requires hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to the point in the "religion" that you f

Do you believe that if someone else works on something very hard and puts a lot of time and money into it (something which you have put no time or effort into at all) and then takes the time to ask for your opinion on some small aspect, that your opinion should be somehow binding? That they are being rude, or even cheating you by not committing themselves to your whims?

Sure there is- in the past, there have been plenty of exploits that tap into Firefox caches, saved passwords, history, and system settings (where all your personal information is really kept these days)

Then there's all the XSS, CSRF, and clickjacking exploits that can compromise websites and services

Let's not forget the fact that Javascript can just be annoying- preventing loops of popup windows and alert boxes is reason enough to disable javascript

Essentially, the entire process was created to generate media attention, otherwise the module would be given a sterile name, or just a number. In an age where NASA seems positively boring they must actively compete with reality TV and myspace/facebook for the attention of the public.

I would be all for naming the module "FUCK" if it would make the public more interested in our space program; and I think Colbert encouraging the public to participate in an entertaining way can do nothing but good things for NASA. It helps make space fun again.

Most societies have used entertainment to help keep important issues in the public interest. Even Rome had it's gladiators to help remind it's citizens that the country was still at war, without them the citizens would have lost interest and stopped backing the expansion.

Seriously? Yes, and why should we be so serious all the time... let history reflect that our generation was both highly productive and capable of good spirited fun.

Wow, really? "Serenity" is just as much of a joke as "Colbert" is - the only difference is the Colbert option isn't intended to be serious. "Serenity" would be the ultimate nerd cheese choice and I say this as someone who enjoyed Firefly.

Really. In the joke sense, "Serenity" has some positive connotations, and they're space-related. It's certainly no worse than "Enterprise". In the plain vanilla sense, "Serenity" is a reasonably nice word that will probably get spelled correctly more often than "Endeavour".

Personally, I like both of them. I think you'll find a lot of very talented folks who really make this stuff happen have been influenced over the years by the creative folks who create scifi. Neither Gene Roddenberry nor Joss Whedon could engineer a space vessel any more than I could, but creative individuals like them almost certainly inspired some of those that *could* do the job.

Let me explain it:
Colbert and his show is one big satire on the right-wing and the pompous right-wind media.
One of the most important parts of the satire is letting the fans play along.When fans vote to put his name on the space station, really they're joining in on the act.

Its kinda like when Spinal Tap actually went on tour. Fans came to see them and did man-on-the-street interviews talking about how they've seen them on the past 12 tours and have been fans of theirs since the '70s, etc.etc., even though the band didn't exist until the '80s.

Colbert, and Colbert fans, are doing the same thing only in the political/media spectrum and throwing it in the face of the right-wing.

Its kinda like when Spinal Tap actually went on tour. Fans came to see them and did man-on-the-street interviews talking about how they've seen them on the past 12 tours and have been fans of theirs since the '70s, etc.etc., even though the band didn't exist until the '80s.

And many of these Spinal Tap "fans" bood the opening act off the stage. And just who was the opening act? The Folksmen. If you've seen the movie A Mighty Wind, you know that the Folksmen are none other than Spinal Tap with different costumes and different music.

Actually, they probably stole the idea of being their own opening act from Hot Rize [hotrize.com], who for 30 years changed costumes and instruments and came out as "Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers", parodying themselves as a Country and Western Band.

We all know space western is one of the most interesting and under-used genres - Cowboy Bebop anyone?

I remember long ago watching BraveStarr on Saturday mornings. Something you don't see often - a guy with a super power he never uses because he has a machine that does it better. Strength of the Bear, Ears of the Wolf, Speed of the Puma, and an infrared scanner thing in my hat...